A tin shack in the dusty forsakenness of a Freedom Park squatter camp, south of Johannesburg, is all that keeps Tshidi* (19) and her 11-year-old brother,Patrick*, from the streets.
I arrive to interview her on a Friday and Tshidi and Patrick should be at school. Instead they are selling cigarettes to get a few rands together to buy their evening meal.
‘There isn’t money for transport, so we can’t go to school,” says Tshidi. It costs her R12,40 each day to get to and from her school in Meadowlands. For her brother, the return trip costs R6 a day. When she has the energy to walk to school it takes Tshidi at least 90 minutes to get there. She’s registered to write her matric in Meadowlands, which was fine when she lived there with her boyfriend. But in May this year her mother died of Aids.
‘I had to come back to look after my brother and I broke up with my boyfriend because he said I must choose between him and my brother,” says Tshidi.
It also meant leaving her two-year-old child with her boyfriend’s family. Tshidi missed a year of school in 2001 to give birth to and take care of her young son.
She came back to a nightmare in Freedom Park. The pain of losing her mother is still huge. All adult support disappeared when the man she and Patrick had called their stepfather for the past seven years walked out on them. He also made claims on their shack, but the Johannesburg Child Welfare Society (JCWS) convinced him to back off.
Leaving the two in their shack is part of the JCWS’ new policy
of assisting children without removing them from their home environment. But it’s a policy that seems to put more emphasis on budgets than on the needs of children.
‘Because of the Aids epidemic we are seeing more and more orphans and we just don’t have enough space for all these children. Also, with Tshidi and Patrick, we would have to split them up because Tshidi is already 19 years old, and I don’t think that would be best for them,” says Susan Rammekwa, an assistant director with the JCWS.
Rammekwa says they have ensured that a Freedom Park community organisation provides a daily meal for the children. Child welfare is also trying to get the siblings admitted to schools closer to their home.
‘I really miss my mother and some days when I’m really sad I just stay in bed all day and cry,” Tshidi says.
Child welfare has informed her school of the situation but Tshidi says many teachers either don’t understand or just don’t care.
‘They think I’m playing around and that’s why I don’t come to school,” she says.
Only her best friend at school knows why she has had such an erratic attendance record this year.
‘I’m ashamed when people ask me why we aren’t at school, so sometimes I don’t even answer,” she says.
Tshidi heads up her household with no money whatsoever. A grant for Patrick can only be applied for in April next year.
Rammekwa explains: ‘The child support grant for children between the ages of eight and 14 is only being phased in now, so Patrick’s application will only come up next year.”
The two survive on the occasional handout and the charity of a neighbour who manages to spare them a few rands from her husband’s meagre salary.
‘Sometimes my neighbour and I don’t eat but we try to make sure that Patrick gets food,” Tshidi says.
One thing Tshidi does have in abundance in the spirit of survival. ‘We will cope. Next year I want to study IT or maybe radiography,” she says.
She knows, though, that staying out of school this year puts her dream further out of reach. She drops her head and allows her braids to shield her face when she tells how bad some of her school marks are.
Child welfare will try to get her a bursary to study next year – but it all hinges on her results.
Tshidi and Patrick are by no means unique. There are thousands of South African children in similar situations, and even attending school quickly becomes a lofty ambition when children don’t know where their next meal will come from.
* Names have been changed to protect the children’s identities